The Seductive Impostor

by Janet Chapman

  Rachel gaped at her. “He lied to me. He used me. He expected me to trust him, and he couldn’t even trust me enough to tell me who he really was.”

  “He was on a job,” Willow pointed out. “And he didn’t use you—he was trying to protect you.”

  Rachel snorted.

  Willow’s bruised face darkened with angry impatience. “He loves you,” she snapped. “And you love him, and you’ve also fallen in love with Mikaela.”

  “It was just lust,” Rachel countered, more to convince herself than Willow. “Raging hormones or a chemical imbalance or something.” She straightened her shoulders and glared at her sister. “I’m fine now. There’s nothing like a good old-fashioned lie to bring a girl to her senses.”

  Willow sighed. “Dammit, Rachel. Have you forgotten that you’ve done nothing but lie to the man for the last two weeks?”

  “That’s different. He knew I was lying.”

  “Will you listen to yourself? You’re expecting to fall in love with a saint?”

  “No, a demigod,” Rachel whispered. “And they’re not supposed to lie to you.”

  “Demigods are not infallible—hence the prefix ‘demi,’ ” Willow returned just as softly. “You’re not nearly as angry as you are hurt, Rae. But you hurt Kee, too.”

  “How?”

  “You’ve been running your own charade. You haven’t been completely up front with him, either,” she said, waving at the room full of treasure. “You didn’t trust him enough to tell him about this room.”

  “I was protecting you.”

  “No, dammit, you weren’t,” Willow snapped, her face flushing with anger again. “I am tired of being a convenient excuse for you to justify your actions of the last two weeks. It may have started with the intention to protect me, but it turned into a grand adventure for you. You loved the mystery. And you let your passion get you into this mess, and now your stubbornness is going to stand in the way of your happiness.”

  “Gee, when did you get a second degree in psychology?”

  Instead of snapping back, Willow smiled at her. “You’ve met your match, big sister. Keenan Oakes is just as passionate and probably a whole lot more stubborn than you are. He’s not going to go away, Rachel.”

  Rachel took one last look at the treasure and started down the ladder, stopping just long enough to glare at Willow. “We’re not telling him about this room,” she told her. “It’s been sitting here for over three years, it can damn well sit a while longer, until I figure out how to get rid of it.”

  Willow slowly nodded. “Okay. I’ll give you one month. Then it’s my decision.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Willow’s prediction that Keenan Oakes was not going to go away proved disconcertingly true. The Six-to-One Odds was moored in Puffin Harbor, and Ahab was serving beer at the Drop Anchor. Near as Rachel could find out, Ahab’s crew had dispersed to parts unknown. Peter and Matthew and Jason had also disappeared, and Luke and Duncan were living with Kee and Mikaela on the far side of town in a house they were renting.

  Mickey, at least twice weekly, would come scratching at Rachel’s door just around sunset and insist on sleeping in Rachel’s tiny bed with her. Then he would silently disappear the next morning.

  Mickey was the only one of the gang she’d had any direct contact with these last three weeks—except for one visit from Luke, who’d hobbled out of a shiny new truck and into her house with the use of a cane two days ago. He’d said he was wanting his strawberry pie and a short walk in the woods to look for her cat. And while he’d sat there and watched, she’d baked him his pie and they’d talked about unimportant things, and then about Mikaela getting signed up for school in the fall.

  But the biggest news of the last three weeks was that Sub Rosa’s true heir had finally arrived. Almost every light in the house was on every night, and loud music and laughter could be heard coming from the terrace most evenings.

  Rachel would sit out on her porch in the evening and look at Sub Rosa, filled with happiness to see her old friend so alive, the heart of the mansion all but singing its joy.

  Frank Foster had his granite memorial. Sub Rosa finally had its soul back, bigger and better than ever. It was full to brimming with people, a family who would love it, grow old with it, get married in it, and bring grandbabies to run through its halls.

  Sub Rosa was no longer an opulent museum, but a home.

  Rachel sat on her swing on the porch and sipped her glass of wine as she watched the shadows lengthen with the setting sun and the lights slowly come on in Sub Rosa. She was sort of expecting Mickey to visit again, but a truck pulled into her dooryard instead. Luke climbed out and hobbled up and joined her on the swing.

  He pushed the swing gently with his good leg, sitting beside her in silence, and also looked up at Sub Rosa. Loud, punk-rock music started blaring from the terrace.

  Luke chuckled. “Five teenagers,” he said, shaking his head. “Have you met them?”

  Rachel nodded. “The day after they moved in. I went up and introduced myself and gave them a quick tour of the control room. I’ve been back two or three times since, when Sub Rosa did something that scared the hell out of them.”

  “Like what?”

  Rachel looked over at Luke and smiled. “Like when that huge glass dome in the foyer suddenly rotated.”

  “It spins?”

  “It adjusts to the seasons. And on the eve of the summer solstice, it turns so the sunrise will hit one special prism and send light shooting down to the calendar built into the marble floor. What’s the Cup of Virtue, Luke?”

  He looked at her. “It’s supposed to be the cup Socrates drank from, filled with hemlock, to carry out his death sentence,” he told her. “He was sentenced to death for impiety against the church.”

  “That’s—it’s over two thousand years old.”

  Luke nodded. “It dates from 399 B.C., to be exact. Has Willow told you anything about Raoul Vegas? Will he stand trial here first for the murder of your parents and Thadd and Mary?”

  Rachel nodded. “The murders take precedence over larceny,” she assured him. “How’s Mikaela?”

  He stared for a minute, then finally said, “If you want the truth, she’s miserable.”

  “Miserable? Why?”

  “She’s having a hard time adjusting to living in a house. She says it’s too big. And she doesn’t like that the bed doesn’t rock at night, like on the Six-to-One Odds.”

  “She did okay here.”

  “But did you notice that she only ran on the beach? She never once got in your swing,” he said, nodding to the swing in the oak tree down on the lawn. “And the woods behind the house we’re renting scare her. She keeps thinking bears are going to come out and eat her. She won’t go out and play unless Mickey or one of us is with her.”

  “She needs to have some kids come over,” Rachel suggested.

  Luke shook his head. “She’s scared of the kids, too. When Kee took her to sign up for school, she hugged his leg and wouldn’t let go. She’s never been around kids.” He shrugged. “We never thought to expose her to any. It’s just been Mikaela and a bunch of men.”

  “Then you’ve got to bring her to the library for story time. You can stay with her, and she’ll get used to being around children. If not, she’s going to throw a hissy fit her first day of school.”

  “I’ve told Kee that. But he’s putting it off.” Luke cocked his head, giving her a crooked grin. “I think the first day of school’s going to be harder on him than on Mikaela. When are you going to stop this nonsense?”

  Rachel looked at him in surprise. “What nonsense?”

  Luke shook his head. “It’s not even stubbornness anymore, is it? It’s pride. Kee’s too proud to come to you, and you’re too proud to go to him.”

  “I didn’t break our trust,” she snapped.

  “Kee sees it differently.”

  “Then that’s his problem, isn’t it?”

  Luke shook his hea
d again. “Pamela’s his biggest problem right now.”

  Pamela. Pamela. Why did that name sound familiar? “Who’s Pamela?” she finally asked.

  Luke eyed her speculatively. “Mikaela’s mother,” he said softly. “She arrived in Puffin Harbor yesterday.”

  “She’s here?” Rachel asked on an indrawn breath. “Why?”

  Luke’s eyes hardened. “Why else? She’s out of money.”

  “She spent a million and a half dollars in five years?”

  Luke nodded. “It appears so. And now she’s asking for more.”

  Rachel just stared at him.

  “Another million,” Luke clarified. “Or she’s taking Kee to court for custody of Mikaela.”

  “On what grounds? She sold her. She can’t just take her back.”

  “She has a lawyer who says she wasn’t in her right mind five years ago. That hormones or something,” he said, waving his hand, “impaired her judgment.”

  Rachel stood up, her hands balled into fists at her side. “Kee better not pay her.”

  “He hasn’t got a choice, Rachel. He can’t risk a court battle.”

  “And what happens in another five years when Pamela comes looking for more money? Kee can’t keep paying her off. He’s in debt now.”

  “We’ll raise the money,” Luke whispered, looking out at the ocean, then back at her. “Kee put the Six-to-One Odds up for sale. And this time he’ll have the custody sanctioned by a court of law. It won’t happen again.”

  “It’s not right,” she snapped.

  “We won’t lose Mikaela,” Luke said, standing up and leaning on his cane. “And we’ll do whatever we have to to stay out of a court battle. It will be too unsettling for her.”

  Rachel scrubbed her face with her hands, blowing out a frustrated breath. “He’s selling the Six-to-One Odds?”

  “It’s not near enough,” Luke told her. “But it’ll help. And Jason and Peter and Matt are on a job right now that should bring in a hundred thousand, if all goes well.”

  “What kind of job?” Rachel asked, peering at him through her fingers.

  Luke shrugged. “An embezzler living on one of the Cayman Islands. His company wants its money back.” He reached out and pulled her hands down from her face. “It shouldn’t involve guns, Rachel. Embezzlers are quiet little bookworms.”

  “Has Mikaela…has she seen her mother?”

  Luke shook his head. “Pamela’s staying at the Red Boot Inn in town and met Kee at the Drop Anchor. She’s agreed to stay away from Mikaela as long as Kee agrees to pay.”

  Rachel let out a relaxing breath. “At least she has that much decency.”

  Luke snorted. “It’s not decency, it’s greed. Kee told her that if she tries to see Mikaela, she won’t get a dime.”

  Luke carefully walked off the porch and to his truck, but stopped before opening the door. “I’ll try and bring Mikaela around to the library soon. When’s story time?”

  “Nine in the morning, Wednesdays and Fridays.”

  He nodded. “Mickey should be arriving soon. He snuck off about half an hour ago,” he told her, opening the truck door and climbing in. He waved good-bye, backed up and turned around, and slowly pulled out of her driveway onto the main road.

  Rachel turned and had just walked into her house when Mickey appeared at the screen door and gave a soft woof. She opened the door, sat down on the floor, and buried her face in his fur.

  There were instances, Rachel decided as she walked down the side of the darkened road, when stubbornness was a virtue instead of a flaw, when passion was an ally instead of a foe, and when pride was just plain stupid.

  She was sorely tired of being stupid. But more important, she was glad that Keenan Oakes was more stubborn than she was.

  He was never going to go away.

  “What do you think, Mickey?” she asked, shifting the box to her other arm so she could pat the wolf on the head. “Will this fix everything or only make things worse?”

  Mickey trotted beside her in silence. Rachel stopped with a sigh, awkwardly reaching for the watch on her left wrist to light up the dial while trying not to drop the box.

  Three in the morning. One hour to sunrise.

  She looked at Keenan Oakes’s rented house. The tug on her heart was definitely stronger, with only a few hundred yards between them. Damn, but she missed his smell. And his taste. She missed the way her heart thumped when he looked at her, and the way her skin tingled when he touched her.

  She had nearly been as stupid as Joan the shrew.

  Nearly, but not quite. She’d come to her senses, thank God, just in time.

  At least, she hoped she was in time.

  With a fortifying breath, Rachel adjusted her grip on the box and marched through the night to Kee’s house with all the anticipation—and determination—of a woman about to set off a nuclear explosion.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  It wasn’t a nuclear explosion—it was more a hard blow to the chest that started his heart racing the moment Kee opened the kitchen door and found Mickey and the box on his porch.

  Mickey sat up with a yawn, stretched back on his haunches, then trotted past Kee and down the hall toward Mikaela’s bedroom.

  Kee stood in the doorway and stared down at the box.

  Now what was her game?

  He knew the box was from Rachel; his name was scrawled across the top in bold black letters formed with the precision of an architect. He looked out at the road beyond, barely visible in the early morning light, then back at the box.

  He was tempted to give it a good kick and send it flying.

  What was she up to that she couldn’t deliver the box in person? Kee bent over and picked it up, somewhat surprised by how light it was. He carried it into the kitchen and set it on the table.

  Duncan strolled into the kitchen. “What’s that?” he asked with a yawn, coming to stand beside Kee.

  “It’s from Rachel,” Kee said, not taking his eyes off the box.

  “Ya don’t seem in much of a hurry to open it,” Duncan softly observed. He chuckled. “In fact, you’re looking as if ya think it’s going to explode in your face.”

  Kee looked at Duncan. “That possibility did occur to me.”

  Duncan waved that away with another chuckle, walked to the counter and pulled a knife from a drawer, and came back to the table. “I’ll open it then,” he said, slitting the tape and lifting the top flaps.

  Kee brushed him aside, pulled out the packing paper on top, then stared into the box.

  Duncan sucked in his breath on a whistle.

  With a slightly trembling hand, Kee reached in and pulled the item out of its nest of packing paper.

  “The Cup of Virtue,” Duncan whispered. “She’s had it all along.”

  Kee set the dull-patinated chalice on the table, pulled the folded piece of paper out of its bowl, and read the note.

  I thought this might help solve your little financial problem, so that you won’t have to sell the Six-to-One Odds. But you should probably change its name to the Six-to-Two Odds.

  Kee took Rachel’s porch steps two at a time and, without knocking, strode into her house, shouting her name.

  He found her sitting on the couch, her feet curled beneath her, sipping what looked like a glass of orange juice.

  Kee stood in the living room doorway and crossed his arms over his chest—mostly to keep his hands from shaking.

  Rachel took another sip of juice.

  “You’re pregnant,” he whispered, proud of the fact that his voice hadn’t cracked from saying it out loud.

  She shrugged. “I promised to tell you,” she said with maddening calm, setting down her drink and standing up. “I’m not just guessing. I took a home pregnancy test.”

  Kee’s ability to speak utterly and completely failed him.

  Rachel, apparently, had no such problem. “But this child is going to cost you a bit more than Mikaela, I’m afraid,” she told him, crossing her own arms over
her chest.

  He still couldn’t speak, probably because his heart was stuck in his throat. But he did manage to lift one brow.

  She shrugged again. “Although that depends on how you measure cost.” Her chin lifted. “I don’t wear jewelry, so a simple wedding band shouldn’t set you back too much.” She took a step toward him. “And this house was designed for a family, but I will be just as happy living on a schooner.”

  Kee’s heart slowly started to settle back down in his chest, but was still pounding with the force of a runaway train.

  “Your greatest expense, the way I see it, will be passion,” she continued, taking another step closer. “And that might cost you more than you’re willing to pay.”

  She stepped even closer. “I won’t compromise on this, Kee. I will swallow my pride, apologize for being a stupid fool, give you my trust without question, and beg forgiveness. But I will not give up passion.”

  She took another step closer, bringing her mere inches from him. “Can you afford that?” she whispered. “Can you afford to love me?”

  Kee finally found his voice. “I believe I can manage that,” he said softly. Carefully, gently, he pulled her into his arms, cradling her head against his chest, against his still racing heart. “If you let me swallow my own pride, apologize for being a stupid fool, accept my trust without question, and allow me to beg forgiveness, I can promise you a lifetime of passion.”

  She wrapped her arms around his waist and let out a deep sigh as she snuggled even closer against him. Kee used her braid to tilt her head back and found himself looking down into beautiful hazel-green eyes shining with promise.

  “I love you,” she whispered.

  “I love you, too,” he told her back.

  Her face suddenly flushed. “Promise to remember that when I show my treasure trove of stolen art.”

  “All of it?” he asked.

  “Every damn last item from Sub Rosa, near as I can tell,” she confirmed, trying to wiggle away. “It’s in a secret room my dad built over the pantry.”

  Kee wouldn’t let her go. He swept her into his arms and, instead of heading to the pantry, started up the stairs to her bedroom. “You can show me later,” he said thickly, taking the steps two at a time.